Lipstick
by rainwater tears
Summary: Post 6x18. In his head he tells himself she’s just some girl he used to love. Lit.


Post 6.18. No apologies made. I own nothing.  
A solemn goodbye to the show that changed my life.  
But not a goodbye to my fic.

**Lipstick  
**By Rainwater Tears

**Masochism** _n_. the getting of pleasure, often sexual, from being hurt or humiliated. – **Masochistic **_n._

--

In his head he tells himself she's just some girl he used to love. The kind of high school sweetheart whose residual taste turns bitter with the years and whose face you can never quite scrub off the surface of your memory.

Like chalk on a forgotten sidewalk.

Like notes in the margins of his favorite books.

He's made a hobby out of walking away from her. Memorized the way it feels when his shoulders slump. The weight pounds down on him like a hammer. It isn't one blow; it's a woodpecker striking at his heart dusk till dawn, pausing when the sun goes down so the heavy stones of guilt can settle in his gut. Remind him of the mistakes he made when he was seventeen and stupid.

It's her shoulders he's watching now. They are sharp angles in the dark of his shop, backlit like an angel's wings by the streetlight out front. She's no angel.

He remembers her when she was all curves (soft skin that formed to the shape of his hand like memory foam). Her only angles were her hip bones. Nature's chastity belt. They were the secret to her innocence.

He wasn't there to see her grow hard.

--

He can still feel her lips against his. A hint of matte lipstick.

Three years since their lips last touched.

He used to lie awake nights remembering the taste of her chapstick. The way her lips slid against his. The pressure, the build, the smack as they pulled apart on the supple leather of his uncle's couch.

Now she's dull and flat. He can see it, hear it. "I love him" echoes in his ears in a voice he doesn't quite believe. There's no passion. No sliding lips and squeaking leather.

This spoiled rich boy she claims to love has never ignored the bruises that come when a virgin's hip bone digs into his stomach. He doesn't know what the skin tastes like in the soft spot just behind her ear, or the exact shape of her lip when he tickles the sole of her foot.

He's known her in sex, the contortions of her face as she comes, but he's never watched her read The Princess Bride.

None of this matters now, in a dark, empty shop.

He hears the door shut behind her. The bell stutters out something reminiscent of a clang, unsure whether she's coming or going. He doesn't make the same mistake.

He swipes his tongue across his lips, tastes the ash of her lipstick and wonders why he can't believe she's just a memory.

She's left the copy of his book on the counter and he picks it up only to toss it back down.

She'd been scribbling notes across his margins for the past 3 years, editing down his life story until she was the only thing left. A soft little virgin in a quaint little town: a hoodlum's ruin. Innocence as the destructor of sin.

He hears her open the car door, the engine start. He doesn't follow her out until he knows she's halfway down the block. He fumbles with the keys, stops to read a poster in the window next door.

She isn't coming back, he knows, but he takes his time anyway. Appreciating the things that make his life worth living.

The guys are halfway to drunk when he steps into the bar. He slides into the booth, hears the leather creak beneath him, familiar. For a second he thinks he can smell cherries on the air. It's just a waitress, sliding past their table in a haze. She's still young enough to appreciate a little flavor in life.

His friends are moaning about the kinds of grown-up things one discovers when alcohol isn't an illegal treat. He settles down into the conversation, slips in a complaint about paying the electricity bill and when is someone going to come and take his drink order? It's comfortable, friendly, the kind of life he never thought he'd know.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, vibrating against his hip. He slides it out, answers with practice. "Hello?"

"Hey. Just wanted to thank you again for inviting me…us." The voice is low on the phone, unsure.

They don't talk much, phone calls on holidays, birthdays. They're family, and everything family entails when you come from their gene pool. Everything is tentative, relationships hang by threads, and they tiptoe across like tight-rope walkers, afraid to tip the scales. Break whatever bound them together in the first place.

"So you getting back to your life or are you guys still on the road?"

"Oh, no, it's another couple days of bus rides and the goddamn elements song."

"Sounds like fun."

He laughs, his voice wavering across the thin connection. "Not really the word I would use." The conversation dwindles, they pause to think about everything that's lead them here. "So, that was weird…running into Rory."

He turns away from his friends and slumps into his phone. "Yeah…yeah, I guess."

"So how'd that go?"

He sighs, straightens up again. He can feel the leather crack and bend with him. He takes a sip of his beer. "Pretty much like always." He runs his tongue across his upper lip, tasting. "A little better, maybe."

Their conversation comes to an end and they hang up. He slides the phone back into his pocket and feels it, still warm from the heat of his hand. The familial thread between them is a little thicker, tighter.

"So I'm thinking, weekly Open Mic Night with local artistes." He can hear a slight slur in his friend's voice.

"No way. When you start saying 'artiste' you get cut off." He slides the beer away and hands it off to the cherry lip gloss waitress with her head in the clouds.

He leans back in the booth. He's got his little aches and pains, the things he can't (won't) forget.

And he's got a life. Back booths, bad poets, and friends who might care if he stops showing up for work.

And it's not that bad.


End file.
